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Millipede 1984 file version?


Urchlay

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Has anyone got a binary load (xex/bin/etc) or ATR file version of the 1984 release of Millipede? I found quite a few copies of Millipede in the archives (Holmes, Homesoft, CTH, etc), but they're all the 1983 version.

 

The 1984 version has an animated title screen (the word MILLIPEDE fades in, then a spider drops from the top of the screen, etc). It also shows the point values on screen when you shoot a spider or whatever.

 

The 1983 title screen doesn't have any animation, and the point values aren't shown during gameplay.

 

There's a ROM dump of the 1984 version at atarimania.com: http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...3397&MENU=8

 

Converted that to a bin load file, but it contains self-destruct code, and won't run correctly from RAM. I'm about to try to patch it so it doesn't overwrite itself, but thought I'd ask whether someone's already done it before I spend the time on it... If nobody has it, I'll post my version here when/if I get it working.

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Here it is. Tested on real HW as well...

 

Shiny!

 

Did you just now crack this, or is it something that's been around a while?

 

My attempt to remove the self-destructs was a lot more complex than what you posted... I thought all those "STA ($80),Y" and "STA ($84),Y" were actually doing something game-related as well as overwriting the game (because replacing them with NOPs didn't work), so I added a bunch of "shims" to the code that jumped to routines that did "BIT $85 : BMI .nostore : STA ($84),Y : .nostore RTS"... apparently I missed a spot: my version plays fine, until I pause & unpause the game, at which point the sound gets screwed up. Your version just replaces the STA's with LDA's, I wouldn't have guessed that'd work... but this is only my 2nd attempt to unprotect a cartridge, so I have much to learn.

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Here it is. Tested on real HW as well...

 

Shiny!

 

Did you just now crack this, or is it something that's been around a while?

 

My attempt to remove the self-destructs was a lot more complex than what you posted... I thought all those "STA ($80),Y" and "STA ($84),Y" were actually doing something game-related as well as overwriting the game (because replacing them with NOPs didn't work), so I added a bunch of "shims" to the code that jumped to routines that did "BIT $85 : BMI .nostore : STA ($84),Y : .nostore RTS"... apparently I missed a spot: my version plays fine, until I pause & unpause the game, at which point the sound gets screwed up. Your version just replaces the STA's with LDA's, I wouldn't have guessed that'd work... but this is only my 2nd attempt to unprotect a cartridge, so I have much to learn.

 

Nothing is a problem when you have the tools...

I dissasembled the whole cart and everything was done in 10 minutes...

 

F.

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Nothing is a problem when you have the tools...

I dissasembled the whole cart and everything was done in 10 minutes...

 

What'd you use? Disassembler + emulator, trap writes to $8000-$BFFF in monitor? (That's what I was doing anyway)

 

Or something more automated, that just does that specific job?

 

Am trying to learn how it actually works, so I don't want to rely on anything that's too automated...

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Nothing is a problem when you have the tools...

I dissasembled the whole cart and everything was done in 10 minutes...

 

What'd you use? Disassembler + emulator, trap writes to $8000-$BFFF in monitor? (That's what I was doing anyway)

 

Or something more automated, that just does that specific job?

 

Am trying to learn how it actually works, so I don't want to rely on anything that's too automated...

 

I use RSDIS 1.6 from Raster's PTP. See this topic.

 

F.

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Thanks, millipede is a great game with a lot of fast sprites on screen. This 1984 version is great!

 

It seems the 1984 version is NTSC too, and work fine in my real Atari. When I play in PAL emulator strange things happens with flys? (aprox 60000 points level)

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  • 5 years later...

I have been playing this game for ages, and I have never seen any "bug" (haha this is such a nice word in this case) in this game. I'm in PAL land.

 

I played till over 340000 points. Never had any problem.

 

1984 version is much cooler, since you get instant scores on the spiders and some other bugs.

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Well, i have the cartridge version from 1984 and some .xex ones. The flies in between the rounds flicker so badly that you can hardly shoot or avoid them. A problem which doesn´t occur in the NTSC version.

 

Look at this video on 1:19 This is the NTSC-Version!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AieUtgmicnE

 

If your version looks exactly the same (without flickering) than you have a highly sought out version and you would make a lot of people happy in PAL-land! :-)

Edited by Artie Stolks
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Confirmed ! i have both PAL and NTSC Atari's. The Flie flickering always occur when playing on PAL Ataris, But when i play the Exact same file on NTSC Atari, the flies dont flicker.

 

Its probably a timing issue, there so mutch going on at the screen at once that the game seems to be optimized for NTSC somehow.

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Confirmed ! i have both PAL and NTSC Atari's. The Flie flickering always occur when playing on PAL Ataris, But when i play the Exact same file on NTSC Atari, the flies dont flicker.

 

Its probably a timing issue, there so mutch going on at the screen at once that the game seems to be optimized for NTSC somehow.

 

Ah... I have played the game again. And I never noticed this problem. I always thought this was something with the game.

 

 

I understand the issue. The horizontal positioning is done on the 'wrong' moment indeed.

 

Is this not happening in the 1983 version?

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Speaking of this game... there are two more issues:

 

It is sometimes impossible to hit the earwig or the caterpillar. The bullets go right through these two bugs, but nothing happens sometimes. I'm not sure this is also the case in NTSC ... but I always wondered what happened. I did not have this issue with the 1983 version. Anyone?

 

Greetz

M.

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